Derbyshire and Back: A 33 km Circular Walk in the Holme Valley

Last week I enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Terence the Turkey as I headed out on my latest walk in the hill country made famous by the BBC in it’s ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ series of yesteryear.

This week I met ‘Laurence’.

‘Laurence’ is probably not this rooster’s name, but it is the name we have nominated for him.

He has an air of Laurence Llewellyn Bowan, the TV celebrity interior designer, who seems to have reappeared on our screens during the Covid pandemic.

The real Laurence can certainly strut his stuff.

Laurence the rooster is no different. He marches around our farmyard with the walking gait that suggests he is the boss. In truth when he walks he resembles a child in flippers.

He is a real beauty though and I think he know’s it!

It was Laurence the Rooster who greeted me first thing as I headed out on yet another ‘make it up as you go’ stroll in this beautiful part off south-west Yorkshire.

With fine and dry weather forecast all day, and with a very respectable 10-14 degrees on the thermometer, it was a day for walking some distance and experiencing yet again, the rejuvenating powers of the ‘Great Outdoors’ in this part of ‘God’s own Country’.

My friend Carl had come back for some more walking now Boris was allowing it.

The hospitable host in me meant that I let him choose. He decided we should head south west towards Derbyshire,

The views were expansive on every horizon as we turned left out of our track. As we gained our initial height through Oldfield, Carl suggested that we could even see the last remaining cooling towers on the M62 near Castleford, some 25 miles to the east directly beyond Castle Hill.

I wasn’t so sure, or maybe it was just an indication of the deteriorating state of my eye sight as I could see nothing. I have an annual check up at the opticians, appropriately enough on April Fool’s Day and I secretly fear the call for glasses may well be sounded!

We agreed to differ on the viewing of Castleford, but we could certainly see miles to the north into Calderdale and even see the windmills above Ogden Reservoir. Looking to the south east, the view was equally impressive beyond Emley Moor mast and in the direction of Barnsley. Given Barnsley is currently the ‘Covid- Capital’ of England, maybe that is as close as I want to get to it for now.

In the glorious morning sunshine, it felt fantastic to be alive and out and about!

Almost immediately we seemed to be accompanied by daffodils in their full and majestic glory. Wildlife abounded too. It finally felt like spring had subdued winter and the world was full of colour, movement, breeze and warmth. The natural world seems to be echoing the more optimistic tones coming out of our daily BBC news updates.

Renewal was all around us and you could not miss it.

The daffodils trumpeted our descent from Honley woods towards Meltham Mills reservoir and seemed to amplify the feeling that at long last this pandemic is on the retreat.

Meltham was an interesting visit. The beech woods and oak trees, so visible in our approach were beautiful.

Full of trees twisting and turning as they tried to steal the light, the gnarled branches whispered of a knowledge of a deeper time. Those trees have lived a long time: both through testing times and happy times. They seemed to rustle a persistent message to ‘keep calm and carry on’ in the gentle morning breeze.

The sense that things will be well was magnified when a woodpecker drilled its morning greetings repeatedly above our heads.

We remembered that sometimes it is good to look down as well as up. The bony tree roots in those woods were intriguing: gnarly shoots rippled though the surface of the dry and dusty forest floor.

Meltham itself is an interesting visit.

The blackface gritstone housing so symbolic of West Yorkshire cast its shadows in the bright morning light.

They certainly seem to like their ‘pleasures’ in these parts.

In a previous blog I referenced their love of all ‘things thongs’. Upperthong, Thongsbridge, Netherthong are just a few of the lingerie linked hamlets lining the hillsides of this valley.

Once we reached Meltham, we strolled through a beautiful historic recreational area intriguingly called ‘The Pleasure Grounds.’

The weir at the centre of the cutting provided a relaxing stop as we stripped a layer.

Out of the still fluky wind, it was getting warm.

Please don’t let your imagination run riot.

The ‘Pleasure Grounds’ is a beautifully scenic wooded park, open to the public, and designed by a landscape gardener named Joshua Major in 1858.

Given that the Victorians were not noted for their love of loose living and lingerie, I can only suggest that the ‘Pleasure Grounds’ and variety of Thongs in these parts can only have received their titles in a much more innocent naming-time than ours of 2021.

Our first serious elevation started as we left Meltham on the Harden Moss Road track and headed north towards the A635 Greenfield Road that eventually links up Holmfirth and the industrial spread of Greater Manchester.

The sight of ever more track-side daffodils soothed our aching calves as we climbed.

The daffodils lined our path on both sides and we saw numerous ‘Mad March’ hares who swiftly scarpered as we sneaked our way downwind way towards them.

Those hares are massive: the size of small dog.

In typical Watershed Down fashion, they thumped their alarm with their hind legs and then ran straight towards us in panic.

I remembered that ‘Tharn’ was the term Richard Adams used to describe the fear of those rabbits in his iconic story.

‘Tharn and Thick’ would be a better description for the Hares of Meltham!

Maybe they had the last laugh on me though. As much as I tried, I just wasn’t quite quick enough with my camera and so my hare-snaps were always a bit too distant to get a really good close up. (see above).

At last the path started to even out and we were treated to more dazzling views to all points of the compass.

The rich green sphagnum moss that plaster the walls of this valley gave tactile testimony to the normal precipitation levels locally, although I have lived here for 5 weeks now and yet we have witnessed just 2 days of rain.

At last Digley Reservoir from our westerly perspective came into view. Beyond it the familiar tapestry of fields and dry stone walls above Hinchcliffe Mill shivered in the sunshine. It really was a beautiful sight.

Our walk had started in spectacular fashion and now it began to get even better.

As we traversed the west bound path high above Digley we spotted lapwings aplenty soaring and diving above the lush, green fields. I wondered why they would dive for earthworms. A quick google search later would reveal that all this diving was part of a mating ritual by the male lapwings as they literally tried to ‘feather their nest’.

3 clusters of desolate farm buildings; empty and uninhabited were the only visible signs of man as we entered the wilderness that separates the 3 shires of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire.

A single daffodil shouted its defiance.

The footpaths were now more empty. It seems that daffodils and new born lambs found the heightened elevations more of an existential challenge once the Greenfield Road was crossed.

We followed our ‘road to nowhere’ with a spring in our step.

A Peacock butterfly basked in a sheltered spot. March hares and butterflies!

Spring has sprung!

The more we walked the more Mother Nature was revealing her increasing bounty.

6 young cows considerately shared their hay bale lunch.

The thought of food It focussed our own minds and we started to look for somewhere suitable. Within 10 minutes we had found the perfect picnic spot, dipped below the influential chill of the wind. We basked in the warm sunshine and took our own lunch to the musical accompaniment of the babbling brook beside us.

Looking back across the valley. The loneliness of that isolated barn we had passed half an hour ago was plain to see in the within the vast emptiness of the upper Holme Valley.

It was here that we had to make a decision.

Double back to Digley or head on up to Holme Moss and the start of Derbyshire.

I worded the choices carefully and my companion took the bait. It would be a shame not to make the mast Carl reasoned out loud. I was not going to argue!

Whilst the terrain was tougher as we eventually went ‘off piste’, the views continued to soothe any tiredness and some 45 minutes later we reached the transmission station at Holme Moss and walked a further kilometre so that we could take in the beauty of the Woodhead Pass and its snaking descent towards the brooding mass of Kinder Scout in the far distance. Derbyshire and its peaks gleamed on the horizon like the polished jewel that it is.

The toil to get to this high and exposed spot was once again richly rewarded.

It was a truly magical sight.

Derbyshire really did seem to beckon us.

I was fleetingly disappointed that my tents were still in storage ready for our pending house move.

A wild camp in that direction would have been compelling but for those pesky Covid-restrictions.

Next time I mused that we should head into deepest Derbyshire perhaps?

That in essence is the real beauty of hill walking in the UK: there can always be a ‘next time!’

Looking back, the whole of Kirklees lay below and before us.

The Reservoirs below Holme Moss displayed a rich new colour. I saw so much more purple on the heather coated ‘tops’ than I had done just 10 days previously, on my last walk to this high point.

By rights we should have been tired.

We had walked a long way and gained a lot of height.

I guess though we had experienced a nature-enthused adrenaline rush.

Walking with my good mate was already uplifting, but within the rich tapestry of the Holme Valley it gave us both a ‘high’ that I wager no other substance (legal or illicit) could really touch.

We dropped quickly down to the woods that circle Yateholme Reservoir. The sun was sparkling. The smells were fresh and invigorating. The moss infested grass was soft and alluring.

We saw very few fellow walkers, but those that we did see all seemed to carry the same magic of this moment in their eyes.

We witnessed no dragging feet or hunched up shoulders.

Our walk back to Digley was relatively flat and easy in comparison giving us both a timely break from all of that undulation. It was so welcome as finally, a creeping fatigue started to reveal itself.

So it was that some 7 hours after setting off from our temporary home in Upperthong, we had completed a near perfect circuit of the western side of the Holme Valley.

Another week had also passed and as I reflected on our walk later that evening I was once again encouraged.

Spring is here. It is official.

On Sunday it won’t get dark till 7.30pm at the earliest as our clocks ‘spring forward’.

29 million people have now been jabbed.

We move into our Yorkshire Dales ‘forever home’ in just 12 days time.

I was also consoled with the thought that in just a few days time, from 29 March, I can do this sort of walk again; but this time legally with several members of my family as long as we stay outside.

We can all raise a cheer and welcome back the ‘Rule of 6’.

Reasons to be cheerful continue to abound if we only chose to look for them.

With that cheery thought in mind I was reminded that even with our house move now coming into a sharper focus, I have at least one more big walk left for me in this stunning area before the beauty of The Yorkshire Dales becomes my long term playground.

As we reached home I remembered one final optimistic thought.

Last but not least, Matthew the farmer who lives next door, has promised us 6 eggs that he hopes ‘Laurence’ will have fertilised and which we can incubate when we move.

I really do fancy owning a crowing rooster with the swagger (and pantaloons) of Laurence when we move to the Yorkshire Dales on 6 April.

Thanks as ever for the read.

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Lots of best wishes to you and your family.

Stay encouraged!

Martin x